


If It Had Been By Any Other Name

by savetheghost



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Multi, also animal transformations, bullshit magic, dave worries about everything, jade is ancient but looks the youngest, john gets into trouble a lot, kind of a fairytale AU kind of thing, mentioned torture, misunderstood witch girls, rose does not like the temporal affects of strong magic, rose is a messy recluse, very vaguely described witch hunting scenarios
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2014-09-09
Packaged: 2018-02-16 17:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2278785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savetheghost/pseuds/savetheghost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cats cannot turn their lips upwards any more than the already set curve of complacent superiority. </p>
<p>One could tell she was flattered, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If It Had Been By Any Other Name

Left, right, left, right, the cat's tail swishes on the desk lightly, low as she steps softly to sit herself at the window. She stares out for a time, eyes flicking back and forth as a group of what had better be lost travelers descended upon the small woodland cottage. 

The rapping at the door didn't soothe the unease, and further added tension when the door was kicked at several times, finally giving on the fifth impact. Of course, the kick did not dislodge the latch. The door was opened. The group had no one there to welcome them, however. 

The cat jumped from the desk, landing lightly, tail high now and head raised as if she were regal company as she went to inspect the guests. 

Or intruders. 

Either way neither are welcome here. 

The man at the head of the group (not a leader, as there seemed to be none,) was the one to point her out. "Is this not the witch's house?" the man asked lightly, smiling down at the feline. "This is far too pretty of a cat to be a familiar, or a witch itself!"

And the cat grinned at this. 

Not outwardly. 

Cats cannot turn their lips upwards any more than the already set curve of complacent superiority. 

One could tell she was flattered, though. 

She sat at the door, taking a paw to lick and clean her lightly colored face as the whole of the group entered and snooped and meddled with the goods and herbs kept scattered about, her narrowed eyes scanning, scrutinizing, analyzing every move they made. It made an uneasy atmosphere. 

"This doesn't seem much like the home of a monster," a girl drawls out, long nails tracing the spines of the tomes kept on every shelf which line every wall, inspecting book title after stuffy book title. "I mean, it's messy, but there isn't anything particularly unsettling..." she gives the cat a glance. "Well... the cat makes me uneasy, I guess."

"That's because we're intruding," Another girl, one with hair that cascades well below her lower back, states the very, very obvious. "It probably was having quite the nap before we woke it up." She smells a sprig of the herbs. 

"That's Sage, isn't it?"

"No, Thyme. I am pretty sure we're just in some old ladies cottage." she gestures towards a large basket filled to the brim with different types of yarns of all one color, and needles used for knitting.

A second man, appearance putting him as rather loose and lanky, pokes his head from the kitchen, which is barely separated from the rest of the house by a small bar. 

"I think we've got the wrong pla-WOAH!" He stumbles backwards as the sound of beating wings and ruffling feathers fills the tiny space, and a large black crow ungracefully manages to slip through the window, half-crashing into the den area. 

 

"Jesus Christ-Where the hell did that come from?" the long-nailed woman all but shouts, backing away from the bird, which has now busied itself with preening right in the middle of the room, actually laying the feathers down onto the floor with an air of spite. The cat saunters over, sitting before the black avian, and stares at it scornfully. 

"Why don't you eat it, lazy cat?" the loose and lanky man asks, getting himself off of the floor from where he had also ungracefully landed from his startled leap. The cat looks over her shoulder at him, her eyes probably unsuccessfully trying to convey that is exactly what she wishes to do. The man just Tsks and suggests the idea that they're in the wrong place, and despite the awkward glances at the black bird pruning itself in the middle of the den rug, they agree to leave. 

Right, left, right, left, the cat's tail swishes on the desk as she sits and watches the group leave, violet eyes narrowed and light fur brushed up from an unwarranted petting from the longer-haired girl. 

"What uncouth youngins we have here these days," A smooth voice drawls out from behind her. You only use smooth as an adjective for him because there simply isn't another word you can find. You may enjoy provoking him by prodding at his ego and trying to make him flare up in anger, but his voice is something you just could never poke fun at. Which is a strange thing to say about a crow. 

Left, right, left, right, a young lady's hands swish this way and that as doors close and belongings are moved back just right in the organized chaos of the small cottage in the woods, and she sits upon her desk, violet eyes narrowed at the black bird looking up at her expectantly. This lady is you. The cat is also you. You, the lady, and the cat are all one and the same. 

"You were not supposed to be back this early," you frown, and the bird lowers his head. "What happened that could possibly cause you to be precisely on time?"

"I would have procrastinated if this hadn't been so urgent" he lifts a wing, and something akin to a bracelet slips off from around it. Apparently it was quite an urgent event, for him to have flown with it like that. It explains his sloppy landing. You know he is a prideful little thing, and embarrassing himself like that in front of company? That was probably a pretty harsh blow to his current mood, which seems mildly irritated. 

"Isn't everything she sends me urgent?"

"It isn't about your inability to grow nightshade, or anything that isn't served in spaghetti sauce," his voice is a monotone, and his avian face remains expressionless as always. "It's about her familiar."

You drop your working hands and your cottage falls still. 

"Was he caught?"

The bird pecks the bracelet off of the dusty flooring, fluttering up to stand on the desk beside you, and drops it in your open hand. He backs off a few small hops.

It's a child's charm bracelet. A multitude of small silver rabbits and a sparse few intermittent objects that probably hold some bit of sentimental value hang off a tarnished chain, each charm hooked to its' own link. Several seem to be broken off. 

"He wasn't caught, he was taken." The bird states with an air of despair. "I took a quick look around, found that caught in a branch..." You let out a shuddery breath and slide off of the desk. "You can get him back with that, can't you?" He questions, hopping after you as you quickly dig around your mess of a home to dig out your shawl, wrapping yourself in it before your cottage helps you out into the woods. The crow follows in the darkening sky above, leading you to your destination in the dimming light. It doesn't take long to reach her tower. You keep the bracelet around your wrist. 

This is what your guests had been looking for, and this is a place they will never find without a smooth-voiced feathery ass, or a calm-yet-daring rodent. You can hear her crying already. 

You waste no time knocking, simply entering through the heavy wooden door at the base and immediately ascending the narrow spiraled staircase all the way up, ignoring the snaking plants coating the walls, the windows dotted along the stairwell with the strangest plants one could find carefully potted with love on every sill. 

You march yourself right up to her bedroom door, and throw it open to let your sharp eyes immediately locate the unruly mop of jet black hair half-buried in a pile of plush toys that resemble both humans and animals at the same time, and dressed in lavish attire. You never understood who came up with these, or why they were ever created. That bothers you deeply. The mop quivers as more quieted sobs escape from under the mess. 

The crow, who wasted absolutely no time in hitching a ride on your shoulder and up the stairwell, flaps himself off of your shoulder. 

One moment there is a dark bird beating its' wings and nearly putting out the candles practically littered about the area, the next there is a fair-haired young man wrapped in a dark cloak kneeled next to the mess of black. He puts a hand on the very top of the nest and coos softly, small and soft bird calls he only ever makes if he feels that something is utterly wrong, because they are otherwise ridiculous and he tries his damndest to keep away from being ridiculous. He near-constantly fails at that. 

"Oh dear," you mutter as you mimic the crow-turned-human's stance, running a hand through surprisingly soft hair. "You poor thing, come on," your companion backs away and you dig down into the tangled mess of hair to find the shaking body hidden beneath it. With less effort than anyone could imagine, you haul the body up and get it standing on its' own two feet. 

"Jade, sweets, come on, you can hold yourself up," you coo, still holding up all the weight of the upset girl. "We're going to be talking, and this is no position for discussing the topics at hand."

With a whimper, the weight is taken off and the girl stands on her own. You glance at your companion, who is looking at you from behind black-tinted spectacles. You can see how upset he is now that his oh-so subtle facial queues are back.

"Let's go make some tea, I have a new recipe," you say, resting one hand on the girls shoulder, using the other to push away thick black hair to find the reddened and tearstained face beneath. 

 

Even her thick spectacles were dripping with tears when you sat her at her own kitchen's table, which sat at the base of the tower, in the small offshoot shack that is situated beside the main structure. She normally takes her meals in her room, as evident by the amount of dust and disuse most of the kitchen has seen. 

It takes no more than a swipe of her hand to clear away the cobwebs and such, though, and soon you're putting the kettle over a newly lit fire in the hearth, and your companion is cooing at the girl again, his chin rested on top of her head and a hand running through her hair in a way that you have repeatedly observed has a calming effect on her. She's down to sniffles and hiccups, taking turns blowing her nose in a handkerchief and trying to keep her lip from quivering. 

"David, please, you'll smother her." you shoo him away as if he were attempting to eat seeds from a field, and it works exceedingly well in letting you take a turn petting her, and getting her to smile just slightly. She quickly remembers her woes, causing her eyes to well up again and for David to shoot into an exasperated panic. He is really not good with crying. 

"J-J-John was...!" She lets out a puff of breath, and with it, a strangled sob. You pat her hair and hum, nodding. "I know, David told me," you unclasp the charm bracelet from your wrist, placing it onto the table in front of her. "He'll be alright, see?" she looks down to the bracelet and nearly screams in delight, her head thrown back to look up at you.

"Where did you find it? How? When?" Her relieved grin greets you from beneath her tangles, and you just smile. 

"Thank David, he found it shortly after he left, according to his oh-so detailed recount of prior events this evening."

She whips around and nabs a wrinkle of his cloak, dragging him over with the strength he wishes he had, pulling him into what you believe would be a spine crushing embrace. Actually, it very well may be.

"Jade, careful, his bones aren't like ours, remember?" she immediately releases him and he inhales deeply, a hand held to his chest as he feigns a choke. 

"Good dear lord girl, you want to break me like you do your glasses? I don't think even you could charm them back together after shattering a few ribs and, I don't know, my spinal chord?" She smiles it off and stands, snatching up the bracelet and your own hand.

"C'mon, lets nab my bunny back," she drags you deeper into the shack portion of her abode, causing you to forgot your kettle on the fire, into what would appear to be a small cupboard beside the hearth. Your companion is forced to wait outside while you step into the space behind the illusion, descending the straight and narrow steps into the brightly lit chamber beneath the tower. Like your cottage, this large room is lined with bookshelves, but rather than holding self-written titles and studies into human emotion and empathy, it's home to hundreds and hundreds of books that you would be delighted to flip through, but never read aloud. 

Spellbooks are some seriously dangerous pieces of ancient literature. You know this from practice. 

 

She pulls a book from a shelf nearest the floor, and you stand in the corner to assist when needed. She plops the charm bracelet onto a wide desk that is so cluttered that the wooden surface is only visible when you look at it head on, and even then, its just a glimpse of the side. 

She pulls stoppers on oils and dresses several candle with them, then smudges the room with a roll of burning sage. A sweep of the hand and the whole room shines as if a handmaid hand cleaned nonstop for a fortnight. She wipes her hands on her skirt and pulls a blank leaf from a book, writing on it a few symbols, maybe runes, then goes back to the charm bracelet. 

You step closer now, as she plucks one of the many rabbits off of the bracelet and sets it on the paper, folding it up and keeping that in one hand. 

"Okie-dokie, you don't mind helping... do you?" she asks as if bashful. 

"He's a friend of mine as well, I wouldn't leave him to kidnappers... Or to poachers."

She grins and holds her hand out, paper-wrapped silver rabbit resting in her palm. You put your hand over hers and close your eyes.  
-  
Smells that blend too much, sounds just too muffled, eyes shift right-left-right-left but nowhere is there a light.  
-  
You clench your eyes tightly and exhale.  
-  
There is your light. 

Metal. It smells and sounds like scraping metal. Heated metal. Red hot and painful. You smell sweat. Not from heat but from anxiety. Fear.  
-  
"They've started a witch hunt," you whisper, and Jade inhales deeply, you can smell and hear and see what she does, and what is would be what Johnathan is smelling and hearing and seeing, and that can definitely not be good for the boy.  
-  
In a moment you feel a year, and you can feel yourself grow feint. Not feint as though you may fall, but as though your body exhausted all reserves and you're only conscious by miracle of will. In a moment you feel jade reach over through your eye, then through her own and into his, and she pulls him back, bypassing you and just ripping him from one space and into the other, and you let go of her hand, which you dug your pin sharp nails into and drew specks of blood.  
-

She ignores her hand in favor of bringing the thin man into her arms and squeezing whatever life had been in him clean out. You can hear the unruly crowing of your companion as he senses what happened, or that you've been down there for a period much longer than the moment you believed it had been. Where the room had been clean, dust coats it, and the candles have gone and burnt themselves out... And the state of the person you know as Johnathan does not align with your current views on how things should be. 

He wobbles on his feet as you help him up the stairs and out of the basement, and a frantic David squabbles to get to him through Jade's wreck of a home. Your inquiries on the date are ignored as he takes the person from you both and sits him at the table, which is covered in breadcrumbs and circular stains from glasses being left on the wood, both of which were not there earlier. The kettle that you remember being on the boil is now being refilled and stuck on a barely burning fire, which another log is thrown into. You don't remember there being so few logs. 

Johnathan watches him with glassy, sunken eyes, his body drenched in sweat and has no more of that thin layer of chub that hid away his muscle. In fact, the muscle doesn't even seem to be there now. All that's left on his bones is his skin. He looks like he hasn't eaten more than a crumb in months. 

It occurs to you that he might not have eaten in months. You turn to your companion and reiterate your earlier query. "David, how long were we downstairs?" Jade looks at you confusedly as she fusses over Johnathan, asking him questions that didn't even begin to get answered by the very obviously traumatized boy. 

"A month and twenty one days," he said, fussing with dried herbs as he tries to make something that may perhaps taste good. He takes a whiff of a small bottle of crushed cloves and wrinkles his nose. Jade is not phased at all, but this is the first time Johnathan perks up. 

"You were looking for me..." His face crinkles in a broken sort of grin. He is so relieved that he passes out right at the table. 

While Jade and David positively freak out, you keep calm. You had a vague idea of how the return charms worked. Some time would pass, you remember from the first time you assisted Jade in catching her runaway rabbit. It had only been a few hours, though, and you had a vague feeling of those hours passing during the execution of the charm. Nearly two full months, though? Where had he been that caused such a time distortion for you? You weren't the one who had to latch on and pull him through though. That was Jade. He had to have been quite a ways off for it to have been so incredibly difficult for a girl of her age...

You help them get Johnathan up to his small offshoot bedroom upstairs, using mixtures of levitation and brute strength on both of the girls parts, and David fretting the whole way up with fluttery wings, before he remembers the tea and shoots off to go make it like a black feathered comet. 

You give Jade a once over once you get the stressed rabbit into his bed, all gangly limbs finally flat and in a more comfortable position than the few he'd been forced into during his flight upstairs. 

She's short, as you've always known her to be, and tan as though she lived on an island her whole life. You don't know if thats reminiscent from the few hundred years she lived in training on a secluded island with her grandfather, or if she really does get that much sun out in these woods. She looks to be no older than fifteen, where you keep a level young adult look about you, perhaps later teens, maybe early adulthood, but you both know she has you outnumbered in centuries of living.

Johnathan is a testament to her age, being her second familiar. The first, a large white hound by the name of Becquerel, passed during the last witch hunts. Though not from age, it was the intensity of the hunts that had taken him. But Johnathan is different. Becquerel was originally a hound, and remained a hound throughout his life. From what you've heard, Jade wasn't exactly strong enough at the time to have a human-esque companion, and as such, was taught by her grandfather to leash this insane devil beast. Rumor has it the demon was ancient, and utterly attached to her, and that led to his downfall during an incident with a man named "Jack". 

 

Jade shows no signs of fatigue or weight loss, however, as you expected. That doesn't usually happen with your kind, it isn't much of a worry. In fact, she looks exactly the same. No signs of the passage of time on her at all. 

You glance over at Johnathan again. Through all that happened, under the malnourishment and trauma, he looks not a day older than the last time you saw him, as well. Whispy dark hair and slightly too large teeth, skin lightened from what you can only guess to be from so much time locked somewhere far underground. He used to have a bit of weight to him, but now he's just stringy and small... But young. Older than Jade, younger than you. Only in appearances, though. 

Same can go for David, whom you can hear pounding up the stairs on his too-light feet. He struggles with the tea tray and the door, finally, after several confused moments that you assume had him staring at the door with his lips pursed and his head tilted, he enters with the tray balanced on top of his head, eliciting a good natured giggle from Jade. 

You envy that balance some days. You can give yourself that balance, but his didn't come from some silly incantation or charm. That's all from those lean muscles wrapped around his hollowed bird's bones. You've seen him dance as though he'd been royalty at one point in his life, but he'd always denied what you saw. He says he'd never had any type of tutoring. Though, he never spoke much about what he was like when he still had average bones, when he was human. 

He sets the tray on the bedside table, staring down at Jade's companion. And his own companion. 

That's truly all you know about his past. 

He and Johnathan were close in their human lives. Really quite close. 

Jade glances at you when he sits onthe edge of the small bed, jerking her head in a subtle gesture of, "Let's leave the ensuing goopey mess here and talk about girly things."

You politely oblige. 

You talk about the witch hunting.

**Author's Note:**

> I've decided I'll keep this as a one shot. I didn't really like any direction i tried to send it to.   
> Also, i apologize for ooc Dave.   
> But, well, if you look at how he reacted to friends being in danger, it kinda isn't ooc. I mean. Goddamn. he rubbed his face on the mayor.


End file.
